ABSTRACT
This short note reports the eighteenth-century account of Mademoiselle Lapaneterie, a French woman who started drinking vinegar to lose weight and died one month later. The case, which was first published by Pierre Desault in 1733, has not yet been reported by present-day behavioural scholars. Similar reports about cases in 1776 are also presented, confirming that some women were using vinegar for weight loss. Those cases can be conceived as a lesson from the past for contemporary policies against the deceptive marketing of potentially hazardous weight-loss products.
Subject(s)
Acetic Acid/history , Diet Fads/history , Diet, Reducing/history , Acetic Acid/therapeutic use , Diet, Reducing/mortality , Female , France , History, 18th Century , Humans , Marketing/historySubject(s)
Acetic Acid/history , Anti-Infective Agents, Local/history , Acetic Acid/therapeutic use , Anti-Infective Agents, Local/therapeutic use , History, 15th Century , History, 16th Century , History, 17th Century , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , History, Ancient , History, Medieval , Humans , Hydrocarbons, Aromatic/history , Plants, MedicinalABSTRACT
Pliny the Elder's account of Cleopatra consuming a cocktail of vinegar and a pearl in order to win a bet with Antony was considered credible in the ancient world, but many modern scholars have relegated the anecdote to the realm of fantasy. This paper identifies possible reasons for this skepticism, including the visual tradition of the story and the belief that increasing concentration always increases reaction rate. Experiments reveal that, in the case of acetic acid and pearls, the concentration found in vinegar made from wine is ideal.
